Designated in October 2000, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail traces the primary route between the colonial Spanish capital of Mexico City and Spanish provincial capitals elsewhere in Mexico and what is now New Mexico between the 16th and 19th centuries. The “Royal Road to the Interior Lands” introduced Europeans, their institutions, and their goods  to long-established indigenous Pueblo communities as well as their nomadic neighbors. Today, the cultural corridor created along the Camino Real reflects the diverse heritages and riches of Native America, the Old World, and the modern societies of the United States and Mexico. BLM jointly administers the trail with the National Park Service.

VIRTUAL TOUR

If you can’t make a trip to New Mexico, take the virtual six- month journey between Mexico City and northern New Mexico. Take the tour.

If you are planning a visit to El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro check out "Five Days on the Trail" for great places to see and visit along the trail.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail is featured in “The Grand Adventure,” a curriculum guide developed as part of BLM’s “Intrigue of the Past: Adventures in Archaeology” series. A series of lessons appropriate for 5th- to 8th-graders is available online in both English and Spanish. Learn more.

This bilingual curriculum opens a new chapter in BLM’s Project Archaeology program: teachers on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border have been taking part in training workshops and using the Camino Real curriculum in their classrooms.

Additional educational resources are available through the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro International Heritage Center and the Museum of New Mexico.

The Heritage Center website includes an interactive map, information about the natural resources along the Trail, and a history of the Trail. The Museum website includes both lesson plans and a photo tour of the trail.

Other museums and visitor centers with extensive displays related to El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro include the New Mexico History Museum’s Palace of the Governors, several New Mexico State Monuments, and the Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail is administered via a partnership between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the National Park Service (NPS). The two agencies share responsibility for preserving, protecting, and providing public access to significant Trail sites and to historic segments of the Trail route.

The El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro Trail Association (CARTA) is a very active partner with BLM and NPS.  In addition to providing scholarly expertise on Trail sites and history, CARTA hosts an annual conference, publishes a newsletter, and undertakes Trail enhancement projects along the length of the Trail in the U.S. and Mexico. CARTA’s historic marker survey is a BLM-supported challenge-cost-share project that will soon make it possible to map all the markers associated with the Camino Real in Texas and New Mexico, and to report damaged markers for quick repair and rehabilitation. 

BLM has also been working with New Mexico’s State Historic Preservation Division and the Museum of New Mexico to build a cadre of private-citizen “trail stewards” for El Camino Real. Stewards are now working in the Santa Fe area, and BLM plans to extend the program southward as stewards join in the partnership

With more than 400 miles of trail to explore in the U.S., and another 1,200 miles through Mexico, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro has something for everyone.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National Historic Trail includes an auto tour route that takes visitors down highways that  retrace the old wagon road. This tour follows all-weather, paved roads, from the busy lanes of Interstate 25 through some of New Mexico’s and Texas’s best-loved back roads and “blue highways.” Visit "Five Days on the Trail".

The tour route is keyed to “Portrait in Sound of an Ancient Road: Songs and Stories of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro,” a three-CD audio guide to the National Historic Trail. A county-by-county guide, complete with scenic and historic highlights and suggestions for places to stop, listen, and learn, is available from the Heritage Center.